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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093948">Let’s Burn The Book</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreetingsFromSpaceWhale/pseuds/GreetingsFromSpaceWhale'>GreetingsFromSpaceWhale</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The UA and Sander Sides fusion [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series), The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Reginald Hargreeves, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Crossover, Diego Hargreeves is Bad at Feelings, Don’t worry about the sides The major character death is for the UA kiddos, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, It’s a fusion AU, Kid Thomas Sanders, M/M, Meet the Family, Minor Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Morality | Patton Sanders Angst, Nico Flores is supportive, Nico knows that the sides exist, Number Five | The Boy is So Done, Poor Thomas Sanders, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Temps Commission, The Hargreeves | Umbrella Academy Need a Hug, The Mindscape (Sanders Sides), The sides are family, Thomas Sanders Angst, Thomas Sanders has powers, Time Travel, Umbrella Academy - Freeform, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves and Thomas Sanders are besties, after about a decade too so a w k w a r d, basically what if Thomas was one of those 43 babies, basically what if the end of the world, but meeting them at a funeral, gets Thomas a new job in a bad way, so we want to avoid that :-), the timeline is pretty much the same but also not, they relate over being left out</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:01:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreetingsFromSpaceWhale/pseuds/GreetingsFromSpaceWhale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The newest Hargreeves student was designated as Number Four. </p><p>   But he kept insisting that his name is Thomas. </p><p>   That of course was not allowed... but it sparked ideas in the other children.</p><p>Years later they’ll have to see if he still sparks ideas in them. </p><p>Or if it’s all pointless. </p><p> </p><p>I do not own The Umbrella Academy franchise!This story has been made for fun!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Anxiety &amp; Creativity &amp; Dark Creativity &amp; Deceit &amp; Logic &amp; Morality &amp; Thomas (Sanders Sides), Anxiety | Virgil &amp; Creativity | Roman &amp; Logic | Logan &amp; Morality | Patton &amp; Thomas Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil &amp; Dark Creativity | Remus &amp; Deceit | Janus &amp; Morality | Patton &amp; Thomas Sanders, Dr. Emile Picani &amp; Thomas Sanders, Dr. Emile Picani/Sleep | Remy Sanders, Nico Flores/Thomas Sanders, Raymond Chestnut &amp; The Hargreeves | Umbrella Academy, Raymond Chestnut/Allison Hargreeves, Thomas Sanders &amp; The Hargreeves | Umbrella Academy, Thomas Sanders &amp; The Sides, Thomas Sanders/Sleep | Remy Sanders, Vanya Hargreeves &amp; Thomas Sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The UA and Sander Sides fusion [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214348</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let’s Burn The Book</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This short chapter will be a break from me breaking down everything wrong from our childhood. </p><p>Instead it will be a story.<br/>
A story that serves as a letter.<br/>
A story that will focus on who I consider to be the luckiest Hargreeves sibling.</p><p> </p><p>  For legal reasons I cannot tell you his name. So instead I will refer to him as his assigned number, Number Four. </p><p>   First off he hated being called Number Four. He always insisted that wasn't his name. Shouting his real name at Mr. Hargreeves whenever called otherwise. </p><p>  Yes Number Four actually came with a real name. That is because he came to the academy when he was eight years old. </p><p>   Mr.Hargreeves was going to send him into foster care because he was apparently "too wild". Another way of saying that he couldn't be brainwashed like we already were. He already has had too much time in the "outside world". </p><p>Then he learned of Number Four's power.</p><p>He was able to create anything out of nothing.</p><p>  Hargreeves explained he would test the extent of his abilities before sending him away.<br/>
This was also another sentence with double meaning. Soon Number Four became what we all thought would be a permanent staple in our lives. </p><p>    Of course pretty soon our first problem arose. There was already a Number Four. That number belonged to Klaus. But soon Klaus was bumped down to five and Five was brought down to six and so on. </p><p>   It was terribly confusing. Trying to ask for each other or yell at one another. </p><p>   That's when Number Four suggested that we could all have our own real names just like him. It seemed like a dangerous idea at the time. Especially since Four had seemed to have gotten into so much trouble with Mr.Hargreeves over it. </p><p>   He explained it wasn't about the name but the fact that he yelled at an adult, yelling at adults is a bad thing and that's why he got in trouble. </p><p>   So with help from our Mother we each got unique names of our own. Five had refused to be called anything else other than Five. </p><p>   We feared at first to refer to each other by the new names. Afraid that at any moment we could be punished for it. </p><p>  Turns out Mr.Hargreeves didn't even care.  Number Four had been right.</p><p>  This wasn't the only "dangerous" idea Four had brought into the academy though. </p><p>  Using his abilities one of his favorite things to do was conjure candy. All sorts of candy. </p><p>   We of course were curious. One day he had pulled a chocolate bar from no where and happily ate it. We had all stared at him. I was wondering what it must taste like. Finally he had noticed our curious looks. </p><p>   "Do you want some?" He asked. After that we asked him non stop for candy. Our selection at the time was limited to what types of candy Four knew of, but to us it was a treasure trove. </p><p>  We started to offer him things to get extra candy. Diego would promise him knife throwing lessons and Luther offered piggy back rides. Allison got him into makeup and clothing. Soon he made the fashionistas go from a duo into a trio. I never did find out what Five offered him to get extra Marshmallows.</p><p>   The biggest change however was Klaus and Ben started to bring him along on their outside adventures. He knew more of the outside world then those two did and was apparently a big help even if he was only eight. (So were Klaus and Ben but keep in mind the type of schooling we had) </p><p>The outside world.<br/>
In the end that's what Number Four was to us.</p><p>  He was a real example (and the only one we ever had) of what it was to be a normal kid in everyday society. </p><p>  But his normalness which we thought was weird soon faded away as he spent more and more time within the academy. </p><p>  As we grew older he would still speak fondly of his family and friends from his old life.   <br/>
That at the time had never made sense to me.<br/>
I had always believed his parents had dumped him off for cash and ran. </p><p>   His escapades into the city at night with Ben and Klaus only made whatever longing he had worse. Soon he spent more and more time sneaking out then spending time with us. </p><p>The candy trading even stopped. </p><p>    As I've said before as we got older the others would spend less and less time with me because I was normal. Four was the only one who wanted to spend any time with me. </p><p>    When I played my violin for him he spoke of  how some artists were worshiped for their music. That I could be one of those people someday. He's the main reason I had kept playing even when violin seemed more and more difficult. Other then wanting to prove to Mr.Hargreeves that I could be something, he's why I am now a violinist.</p><p>   Then the reason why he was spending more time sneaking out came to light. When Number Four was 12 years old the police had shown up at The Umbrella Academy's door. </p><p>And we never saw Number Four again. </p><p>   It turns out that all those soft memories he had of his parents were accurate. They had been looking for him. In some crazy sense of hope he was also looking for them. </p><p>   I have no idea how long he had been searching for his parents. But no matter how long it had been it still hurt all of us. </p><p>   What did we do wrong? Were we not good enough for him? Did we not not match up with some silly mundane powerless family? </p><p>   Number Four was the glimpse we had into the outside world, our only real connection to it. So we saw him as the outside world. </p><p>   Him leaving made us think that we weren't good enough for the world. That we could be better. That we had to be better in order to be accepted.</p><p> </p><p>  Everyone became colder. Politeness had left in favor of striving to be the best. </p><p>   Four had even tried contacting us. To tell us that he was okay and that he missed us. To me the apologies felt empty. I remember what exactly Diego said when picking up one of Number Four's calls; "Fuck you." And then immediately hung up on him. </p><p>   Even with this opposition Four had continued trying to call us for the next four months. I thought something must of snapped inside of him in order for him to give up. </p><p>   Turns out Mr.Hargreeves had changed our phone number. </p><p>  He also changed our titles back to what they were before Number Four had showed up. </p><p>We acted like he was never there.<br/>
But he was.<br/>
When staples are removed they leaves tears in the pages. </p><p>   Sorry I know I said this chapter wouldn't be about our horrible childhood but it somehow always comes back to that.</p><p>  Number Four if you are reading this I hope you now know about the impact you made on us for better or for worse. The gap you left. I hope you also now know that you are indeed the luckiest Hargreeves child out of us all. Even when compared to Allison. </p><p>  I hope you got to be normal in the way you wanted. </p><p>Please try to call me again. </p><p>Sincerely, Vanya Hargreaves</p><p>——————————————————</p><p>Thomas had to slowly put the book down.<br/>
His hands were shaking.</p><p>   Throughout reading the book he never saw himself be mentioned.</p><p>  The book is one giant diss track to basically everybody in Vanya's life. He had just assumed he wasn't even important enough to be there. That his very short presence had done nothing.</p><p>  Not being mentioned at all had seemed like a big enough insult after all. </p><p>   "Deep breaths Thomas." </p><p>"Wait when did Logan get here?" </p><p>    "We have  been here for approximately five minutes and 33 seconds."</p><p>"I said that out loud didn't I?" </p><p>"You sure did kiddo."  Ah, Patton is here too. </p><p>  Thomas sighed deeply. Somebody gave him a hug on his left. </p><p>"Hey Emile." </p><p>    "Sssh, save your breath." Emile told while giving him a tight squeeze.</p><p>    "It'll be okay." Thomas isn't sure who's talking at this point. His eyes are drooping from the emotional exhaustion. He lets himself relax. Leaning against whoever is next to him. </p><p>"Mmmnn I deserve a nap." The couch felt so welcoming right now. </p><p>"Of course you do Thomas."</p><p>   Once Thomas had finally fallen asleep Virgil  spoke up. </p><p>   "I knew it was a bad idea for him to read this!" Grabbing the book he started to walk away with it. </p><p>"What are you doing?" Logan asked. </p><p>"I'm going to throw it awa-"</p><p>"Oooo gimme gimme, let me set it on fire instead!" </p><p>   "You know what Remus go right ahead." Roman said  in agreement. Remus made grabby motions for the book. Emile got to it first before he could obliterate it though. </p><p>  "This is good for Thomas, he can't ignore the past forever." Emile argued, he held the book tightly. </p><p>   "That is true the past is always involved with the present somehow." Logan supported.</p><p>   "Isn't it called the past for a reason?" Roman complained. </p><p>   "As long as Thomas doesn't push himself too far it could be beneficial." Janus said in a low voice, he didn't want to wake up Thomas who was snuggled right up against him.</p><p>"Patton?" Virgil asked sounding desperate. </p><p>   "You know I hate seeing Thomas hurting kiddo" Patton paused to adjust Janus's cape so it was more of a blanket for Thomas "but we can't let the past keep weighing him down like it's been." </p><p> Virgil shoulders sagged clearly seeing he was fighting a losing battle. </p><p>"We didn't get Remy's opinion yet!" Roman protested. </p><p>"Remy is busy keeping Thomas asleep, I am sure he would understand." Logan explained. Roman just let out a dramatic huff.</p><p>It was three against four. </p><p>The book was safe.</p><p>For now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>To clear any confusion:</p><p>Thomas was “adopted” by Mr.Hargreeves at age 8.  </p><p>He was named number four. </p><p>When he left at age 12 they changed the numbers back as if he never existed. </p><p>The end bit is Thomas freaking out over what Vanya says about him in her novel.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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